“As practical advice for aspiring writers (and those who just enjoying learning how words work), there are few as direct, revealing, and fun to read–Le Guin’s style has always been a fresh slap in our dulling faces.”

There is nothing amiss with Le Guin’s book on the fundamentals of writing. More, as practical advice for aspiring writers (and those who just enjoying learning how words work), there are few as direct, revealing, and fun to read–Le Guin’s style has always been a fresh slap in our dulling faces.

The book came from a workshop she ran on writing which her students suggested she formalize. And so we learn about verb use, point of view, and the like, complete with chapter exercises from the workshop to try out and plenty of extended examples from a variety of writers. True, she has sometimes created her own specialized vocabulary for some terms, especially grammatical ones, but this is out of her personal interest in making words speak their meaning over a scholarly accuracy.

For me, this was a fast and enjoyable read, mostly because of Le Guin’s stylistic voice as she speaks to us. The advice itself is rarely overly original or surprising–there are dozens of books which offer nearly the same content with most of the same strategies. I found myself wishing for a more advanced book from her, one which moves past fundamentals and gets to the complexities of form or structure or the strategies for plotting. She writes and speaks of these in other collections in bits and pieces, however.

A great read (or even a gift!) for emerging writers.